Tea is a pretty good drink. But then so is water and it will come as no surprise to you that water pips tea to the post as the best and healthiest drink. But even if you cannot give up your tea, or your coffee or fruit squash, you can at least appreciate that better quality water will give you a better quality drink.
What is Reverse Osmosis or RO water?
Reverse osmosis removes far more impurities than just jug filters, distilled water and some commercially bottled brands. It's a very efficient system for producing purer water. There are lots of explanations on the internet of what reverse osmosis is and you can read here the science of reverse osmosis, the permeable membranes and the process of removing unwanted particles from water. Just know - it gives you pure tasting water.
Why am I writing about reverse osmosis?
In an effort to get people to drink better quality water but also to reduce the amount of plastic bottles that we would have to buy, a system at home is perfect. There are many different systems out there and you can bring in a plumber to install something for the whole house but if it's just for drinking/cooking, I've found that a small system like one from Osmio does the job.
We used to have a large water filtration system that had to be plumbed in and took up an entire kitchen cupboard all on its own. Now we have a system that looks the same size as a tall coffee machine and sits on the kitchen counter. No need to plumb in. Just plug in and go.
Waste water - no problem
For every 5 litres of pure water that it gives you, there is 1 litre of waste. Our old kitchen cupboard system used to give us the opposite. I collect the waste water in a jug and use it for soaking dirty dishes and watering plants so it gets used up.
Taste?
Divine.
When I go to friends' houses I take a bottle of my RO water with me because theirs isn't as good.
Who would need RO?
1) The water in your area is not reliably as clean as you would like.
2) You don't like the taste of your tap water.
3) You drink bottled water and you're conscious of using throw-away plastic
No need for a kettle
The Osmio RO system gives water at different temperatures. 25C which is ambient room temperature; 65C quite warm, ideal for children; 85C ideal for green tea; 95C for hot drinks. The temperature is not exact each time, it depends on whether you've just drawn out ambient temperature and then press the 95C button because the water will be a mixture of varying temperatures from 25-95C.
The Osmio website posts videos on how to change the filters (easy), how to re-fill the water tank (really easy) and basically how to use this for your drinks.
This is an image from their website to show you how conveniently sized the box is.
